This past State Fair here in West Virginia did indeed feature a promotional booth operated by a local "citizen's" militia -- mostly fat old guys in fatigues looking somewhat fatigued themselves, no actual weapons in site though.
And there were people scurrying out of another booth to push New Testaments into the hands of the smallest children as they walked by with their corn dogs and candy apples. (I've never understood why that particular sequel gets wider distribution than the first installment, but having never read either I wouldn't be one to judge.)
I didn't see any attendants confront either of these two groups, and I myself smiled tolerantly when our state's problematic attorney general initiated an aggressive handshake walking through the crowd, so politeness still reigned.
And Bobo the Dunking Booth Clown with his creative "hillbilly" insults was absent this year as well.
I still don't ride the "rides", but I do not disparage them.
Good morning, GK! Thank you for the important reminders: be of good cheer, strive to be happy. The America I grew up in seems to have become a bedlam. At 58 I’m weary & wary of the Orwell nightmare that is happening. I’m grateful for your common sense and rich humor to seek the light and also the balance. Below from this morning’s First Light Meditation:
I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
The fairs in Maine come pre-divided. There are the fairs like you're thinking of, with the rides and the casually conservative who like demolition derby and pulled pork sandwiches and Donald Trump because he speaks his mind, and then there's the fair put on by the organic people, with no rides, but lots of arts and crafts and music, all the food is organic and all of it local except the coffee, which they let in, very reluctantly, just a few years ago. A slew of talks and demonstrations of how to raise this crop or that and keep them free of bugs without resorting to using DDT or something else that will kill us all. The public radio station has a booth, Monsanto does not.
So people pick their fairs, and while there is some overlap, some of the crowds enjoying both sorts, it's not all that big. The big fair, with the rides, that goes for nine days. The organic focused fair only for three, but this year the turnout was just shy of 70,000, a record. Since 1985 we've never missed that fair, save when we've actually been abroad on that fourth weekend in September, except for these last three years. They didn't hold it in 2020 or 2021, out of a sense of prudence, but like so many in America, they decided that the epidemic is over, and held the fair this year. The grandkids went, with their parents, but we did not, but we hope to be able to go next year. There's been a lot of "maybe next year" the last three years. We miss the fair, we miss the people we see there. We look forward to going back when we can make it.
I'm glad the organic fair does well but I prefer the other fair where I congregate with people I don't see much of the rest of the year. More educational.
I marvel at the miracle of a country, the first on Earth proclaiming itself to be the land of many. There's some big spaces between the proclaiming part and the "...proud to be a nation of immigrants" part... sorta in lots places but not so much in other places.... The Somali thing in Minneapolis hasn't exactly been beer and skittles...a little Mogadishu came with them with the attendant gun play. I still continue to marvel, but my day to day experience says it's up to young people to make it work because my generation primarily provided lip service and then went and became stockbrokers as quickly as possible.
Excerpt for a few handfuls of us who did our personal growth homework, explored new psych therapies and were able to unburden ourselves of many unresolved issues. :)
Cheerfulness is a fine trait, and I try mostly to offer it to the world. And certainly chronic complaining pollutes everything. But there is a time to acknowledge and express darker feelings. Not far and wide, but to people who love you and will comfort you. We never outgrow that need. And it’s just as toxic, I think, to be chronically cheerful. And as far as our history is concerned I’d say we who have benefited from the accident of our skin color would do well to acknowledge how that reality continues to favor us. Not to put us into shame or rage, but also not looking away.
Black people own a history of slavery and discrimination. And my ancestors were trapped in their own stubbornness and low self-esteen and expectations of failure. Life is complicated. My great-great-great grandpa was a Brit who jumped ship (a capital offense) in Charleston and made his way inland to Pennsylvania and became my ancestor. I revere him and his criminal DNA. It's a good story.
I had the chance to discover the Prairie Home cemetery in Moorhead, MN. Walking among those stones, you can get a real sense of the "First-comers" - the footloose folks who had nowhere in specific to go, and nothing that bound them to being there. And what's "criminal?" It has been, and still is, the well-off who can affect the representatives who make the laws, and bend the laws in their favor.
When we had a farm in Rancho California, the Mexican workers had a communal fabric that extended throughout the large development. One huge set of orange groves was the property of Ronald Reagan, then governor of California. Some of my friends passed on the message that Susanna could get them second-hand clothes in Santa Ana, and send money by telegram to the workers' families back home. I'd show up with dozens of work pants and shirts, and folks would line up to give me their earnings to dispatch by the Western Union office in Santa Ana. Once, as I recall, I had $15,000 to send in "giros." The workers didn't trust their "foremen" and felt really isolated in that orange grove dependency. It seemed to me that Reagan had no more knowledge or respect for those who worked for him than if they had been so many ants.
"Criminal?" Yes! One or two of the long-term workers at Rancho California were actually "legal residents." Their wives had managed to have babies born in California - at which point the fathers could apply for Green Cards as the parents of American citizens. If you ask me, though, I saw more "civility" and less "criminal behavior" in the orang groves than I did when I was in some of the villages near Los Angeles.
As for your ancestor, I'd like to think of him as "self-directed". Those sailors on the high seas were very often working for what we'd call "Giant Corporations" - The East India Company - The Hudson's Bay Company and so on. Those in charge, like Ronny Reagan, probably saw the "Jack Tars" as nothing more than pairs of hands necessary to lift or reef the sails. Three cheers for you - to respect human beings, no matter what their "Class!"
My father's maternal ancestors ended up in the United States because of a war in Bavaria. My great-great- (I forget how many greats) grandmother had lost all of her sons and her husband to the war Refusing to allow the draft to claim her last, teenage son , she smuggled him to the States. So that side of the family was founded by a draft dodging young man, aided and abetted by his brave mother. Dad's paternal side were descended from nobles, but his great grandfather was the second youngest child of his family, so he and his younger brother headed north to become farmers - my great-great granddad was also a Methodist minister, so I guess he kept busy. My mother's ancestors were all lumberjacks and farmers in Canada. Not a bad ancestry, IMHO. :)
"Lumberjacks" might bring to mind Paul Bunyan types with double-bladed axes in hand. Once I had the chance, in Canada, to sit next to a "logger" who worked in the Western slopes where they practice "skyline logging." He was proud of the fact that most young men lasted only 6 months or less before a tree bounced the wrong way and crippled or killed him. He was already a several year veteran. I'm not sure at this point, but I think men like him were called "monkeys." Installing skyline cables involves selecting trees at a given interval, climbing up them, removing the side branches so they stand like telephone poles, and attaching cables at a level such that the felled logs can be lowered to the valley, as if they were on an aerial tramway. Climbing the cable tree was the easy part. getting across the fields of felled trees was something else again. The trunks could make a pathway, but they were held up by the uncut side branches that acted like erratic springs. A cable monkey had to cross fields of these persnickety pathways, guessing how the trunk he was standing on would react to his weight.
Why would anyone take a death-defying job like that? The pay was fantastic! He'd make approximately ten times the average Canadian worker's pay in a year, and work just 6-8 months for a season. All he had to do was to take the end of a cable and unspool it across felled trees, climb up a tree-pole periodically, attach it and hope he could get home at night without a broken leg, or worse. My seatmate "monkey" said he could work 2-3 months a year, and relax at home the rest of the time!
There can be a lot more to "a job" than just the focal point we're aware of. If you ask Our Multi-talented Host: "How do you make a chicken pot pie?" His answer might be "First, catch the chicken!" I think, in part, at least some of his success as a story-teller comes from his childhood experiences with seeing farm-life from "The ground up!" I remember tales of the way his family would get live chickens, and he'd have to snag them and bring them to the chopping block before chicken dinner became a reality. Not many of us, whose urban reality has been supermarket fare, have that deep connection with the "how do you get from A to Z?" aspect of life. Thank you , Dear Friend, for your depth of perception!
I suspect the job was a bit different in the early 1800s, when my ancestor was lumberjacking. My family tends to run to a short stature, but we also tend to be strong and sturdy.
Knowing where the chicken in chicken pot pie comes from is one of the reasons I'm a vegetarian. It upset me to eat my former feathered friends...
Those men were called "high riggers" but they're long gone. You're describing how select trees were used as spars, to haul the other logs down to a landing. For a couple of generations now mobile (metal) spars have been used. You're right about the risk; the old "Book of Lists" (David Wallace and his sister, Ms. Wallachinski (sp?)) listed high riggers as the most dangerous of jobs (next to astronauts).
Thanks for the vocabulary, Junior! The high rigger I met had been working in the Queen Charlotte Islands, [Haida Gwaii] off the west coast of British Columbia. There’s an article on UBC Wiki: The impact of continued logging operations in Haida Gwaii — ecological and social impacts for the Haida Nation. It doesn’t go into what the loggers are using for spars these days. From what my logger seatmate told me, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if logging companies on the islands are several decades behind current trends. With all our current concern about global warming – it’s enough to make one pause, to think about how many forested areas there are around the globe, and how slowly some economies are becoming conscious of the importance of woodlands to the carbon cycle.
Great column and good advice that I usually take. When I fall off that particular wagon and idiotically get started ranting over the ranting of some other idiot, I only end up in a self-traumatizing situation that my wife kindly points out to me.
Well, one of my favorites is Tom Hanks, whom I have to turn to when all seems overwhelming, terrifying, and on and on it seems to go these days!! Tom, a human being I greatly admire for his many fine qualities, reminds me that the worst thing I could possibly do during my time in this world, is to become cynical. That's a "DUH," if we really understand that cynicism makes what's bad, become worse. Thanks G. and hopefully you're mending with each day! 🤗
I first attended the Minnesota State F air at the age of 10- I took the street car there from south Minneapolis. I had saved $5. I then a found a five dollar bill on the ground. Had a great time and went home with $6. I have great memoriesa of those times.
Garrison, Thank you again for an uplifting message from someone my age, with an upper-MidWest origin--often in & thru Anoka.
I also worry about Minnesota, more especially about Minneapolis where I lived for six years during my education & grad school days (late 60's, early 70's). It was a very beautiful city, considered completely safe, highly educated with all the shopping & entertainment that the country's large metro areas bragged about.
It's hard to believe the news we now see of 'Mpls', and very sobering to see such a great community just crumble under social stresses--that virtually didn't exist in my time. Hopefully strong leadership will revive the city, as the great people who were once its core are still there--many or most of them.
Re: State Fairs
This past State Fair here in West Virginia did indeed feature a promotional booth operated by a local "citizen's" militia -- mostly fat old guys in fatigues looking somewhat fatigued themselves, no actual weapons in site though.
And there were people scurrying out of another booth to push New Testaments into the hands of the smallest children as they walked by with their corn dogs and candy apples. (I've never understood why that particular sequel gets wider distribution than the first installment, but having never read either I wouldn't be one to judge.)
I didn't see any attendants confront either of these two groups, and I myself smiled tolerantly when our state's problematic attorney general initiated an aggressive handshake walking through the crowd, so politeness still reigned.
And Bobo the Dunking Booth Clown with his creative "hillbilly" insults was absent this year as well.
I still don't ride the "rides", but I do not disparage them.
Thanks for your time. Be well.
Corn dogs. I miss them. It's been a long time.
Gotta choose the right vendor, of course. All corn dogs are not created equal. "There be good, and bad," as the pirates say. :D
The secret, I am told, is buttermilk in the batter. :D
Good morning, GK! Thank you for the important reminders: be of good cheer, strive to be happy. The America I grew up in seems to have become a bedlam. At 58 I’m weary & wary of the Orwell nightmare that is happening. I’m grateful for your common sense and rich humor to seek the light and also the balance. Below from this morning’s First Light Meditation:
I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805 – 1859
Thank you. So…hope you’re doing good then…
I'm doing good. Doing a treadmill and stationary bike and weights every day.
Loved this! Thanks for a lovely start to the day!
Says it all. Do it.
Nothing needs to be added. Thank you Garrison.
Thanks for starting my day in just the perfect way
The fairs in Maine come pre-divided. There are the fairs like you're thinking of, with the rides and the casually conservative who like demolition derby and pulled pork sandwiches and Donald Trump because he speaks his mind, and then there's the fair put on by the organic people, with no rides, but lots of arts and crafts and music, all the food is organic and all of it local except the coffee, which they let in, very reluctantly, just a few years ago. A slew of talks and demonstrations of how to raise this crop or that and keep them free of bugs without resorting to using DDT or something else that will kill us all. The public radio station has a booth, Monsanto does not.
So people pick their fairs, and while there is some overlap, some of the crowds enjoying both sorts, it's not all that big. The big fair, with the rides, that goes for nine days. The organic focused fair only for three, but this year the turnout was just shy of 70,000, a record. Since 1985 we've never missed that fair, save when we've actually been abroad on that fourth weekend in September, except for these last three years. They didn't hold it in 2020 or 2021, out of a sense of prudence, but like so many in America, they decided that the epidemic is over, and held the fair this year. The grandkids went, with their parents, but we did not, but we hope to be able to go next year. There's been a lot of "maybe next year" the last three years. We miss the fair, we miss the people we see there. We look forward to going back when we can make it.
I'm glad the organic fair does well but I prefer the other fair where I congregate with people I don't see much of the rest of the year. More educational.
I marvel at the miracle of a country, the first on Earth proclaiming itself to be the land of many. There's some big spaces between the proclaiming part and the "...proud to be a nation of immigrants" part... sorta in lots places but not so much in other places.... The Somali thing in Minneapolis hasn't exactly been beer and skittles...a little Mogadishu came with them with the attendant gun play. I still continue to marvel, but my day to day experience says it's up to young people to make it work because my generation primarily provided lip service and then went and became stockbrokers as quickly as possible.
Excerpt for a few handfuls of us who did our personal growth homework, explored new psych therapies and were able to unburden ourselves of many unresolved issues. :)
Good advice no matter what happens.
I read The Column three times and three times it made me smile. And smile. And smile. Thank you.
Cheerfulness is a fine trait, and I try mostly to offer it to the world. And certainly chronic complaining pollutes everything. But there is a time to acknowledge and express darker feelings. Not far and wide, but to people who love you and will comfort you. We never outgrow that need. And it’s just as toxic, I think, to be chronically cheerful. And as far as our history is concerned I’d say we who have benefited from the accident of our skin color would do well to acknowledge how that reality continues to favor us. Not to put us into shame or rage, but also not looking away.
Black people own a history of slavery and discrimination. And my ancestors were trapped in their own stubbornness and low self-esteen and expectations of failure. Life is complicated. My great-great-great grandpa was a Brit who jumped ship (a capital offense) in Charleston and made his way inland to Pennsylvania and became my ancestor. I revere him and his criminal DNA. It's a good story.
I had the chance to discover the Prairie Home cemetery in Moorhead, MN. Walking among those stones, you can get a real sense of the "First-comers" - the footloose folks who had nowhere in specific to go, and nothing that bound them to being there. And what's "criminal?" It has been, and still is, the well-off who can affect the representatives who make the laws, and bend the laws in their favor.
When we had a farm in Rancho California, the Mexican workers had a communal fabric that extended throughout the large development. One huge set of orange groves was the property of Ronald Reagan, then governor of California. Some of my friends passed on the message that Susanna could get them second-hand clothes in Santa Ana, and send money by telegram to the workers' families back home. I'd show up with dozens of work pants and shirts, and folks would line up to give me their earnings to dispatch by the Western Union office in Santa Ana. Once, as I recall, I had $15,000 to send in "giros." The workers didn't trust their "foremen" and felt really isolated in that orange grove dependency. It seemed to me that Reagan had no more knowledge or respect for those who worked for him than if they had been so many ants.
"Criminal?" Yes! One or two of the long-term workers at Rancho California were actually "legal residents." Their wives had managed to have babies born in California - at which point the fathers could apply for Green Cards as the parents of American citizens. If you ask me, though, I saw more "civility" and less "criminal behavior" in the orang groves than I did when I was in some of the villages near Los Angeles.
As for your ancestor, I'd like to think of him as "self-directed". Those sailors on the high seas were very often working for what we'd call "Giant Corporations" - The East India Company - The Hudson's Bay Company and so on. Those in charge, like Ronny Reagan, probably saw the "Jack Tars" as nothing more than pairs of hands necessary to lift or reef the sails. Three cheers for you - to respect human beings, no matter what their "Class!"
Excellent and informative comment - thanks.
My father's maternal ancestors ended up in the United States because of a war in Bavaria. My great-great- (I forget how many greats) grandmother had lost all of her sons and her husband to the war Refusing to allow the draft to claim her last, teenage son , she smuggled him to the States. So that side of the family was founded by a draft dodging young man, aided and abetted by his brave mother. Dad's paternal side were descended from nobles, but his great grandfather was the second youngest child of his family, so he and his younger brother headed north to become farmers - my great-great granddad was also a Methodist minister, so I guess he kept busy. My mother's ancestors were all lumberjacks and farmers in Canada. Not a bad ancestry, IMHO. :)
"Lumberjacks" might bring to mind Paul Bunyan types with double-bladed axes in hand. Once I had the chance, in Canada, to sit next to a "logger" who worked in the Western slopes where they practice "skyline logging." He was proud of the fact that most young men lasted only 6 months or less before a tree bounced the wrong way and crippled or killed him. He was already a several year veteran. I'm not sure at this point, but I think men like him were called "monkeys." Installing skyline cables involves selecting trees at a given interval, climbing up them, removing the side branches so they stand like telephone poles, and attaching cables at a level such that the felled logs can be lowered to the valley, as if they were on an aerial tramway. Climbing the cable tree was the easy part. getting across the fields of felled trees was something else again. The trunks could make a pathway, but they were held up by the uncut side branches that acted like erratic springs. A cable monkey had to cross fields of these persnickety pathways, guessing how the trunk he was standing on would react to his weight.
Why would anyone take a death-defying job like that? The pay was fantastic! He'd make approximately ten times the average Canadian worker's pay in a year, and work just 6-8 months for a season. All he had to do was to take the end of a cable and unspool it across felled trees, climb up a tree-pole periodically, attach it and hope he could get home at night without a broken leg, or worse. My seatmate "monkey" said he could work 2-3 months a year, and relax at home the rest of the time!
There can be a lot more to "a job" than just the focal point we're aware of. If you ask Our Multi-talented Host: "How do you make a chicken pot pie?" His answer might be "First, catch the chicken!" I think, in part, at least some of his success as a story-teller comes from his childhood experiences with seeing farm-life from "The ground up!" I remember tales of the way his family would get live chickens, and he'd have to snag them and bring them to the chopping block before chicken dinner became a reality. Not many of us, whose urban reality has been supermarket fare, have that deep connection with the "how do you get from A to Z?" aspect of life. Thank you , Dear Friend, for your depth of perception!
I suspect the job was a bit different in the early 1800s, when my ancestor was lumberjacking. My family tends to run to a short stature, but we also tend to be strong and sturdy.
Knowing where the chicken in chicken pot pie comes from is one of the reasons I'm a vegetarian. It upset me to eat my former feathered friends...
When I think of lumberjacks, I think of Mounty Python. How they sleep all night and work all day.
They're okay, too. 😁
And pick wild flowers.
That's always been my favorite Monty Python routine, even though it's about as non-PC as one can get...
Those men were called "high riggers" but they're long gone. You're describing how select trees were used as spars, to haul the other logs down to a landing. For a couple of generations now mobile (metal) spars have been used. You're right about the risk; the old "Book of Lists" (David Wallace and his sister, Ms. Wallachinski (sp?)) listed high riggers as the most dangerous of jobs (next to astronauts).
Thanks for the vocabulary, Junior! The high rigger I met had been working in the Queen Charlotte Islands, [Haida Gwaii] off the west coast of British Columbia. There’s an article on UBC Wiki: The impact of continued logging operations in Haida Gwaii — ecological and social impacts for the Haida Nation. It doesn’t go into what the loggers are using for spars these days. From what my logger seatmate told me, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if logging companies on the islands are several decades behind current trends. With all our current concern about global warming – it’s enough to make one pause, to think about how many forested areas there are around the globe, and how slowly some economies are becoming conscious of the importance of woodlands to the carbon cycle.
Great column and good advice that I usually take. When I fall off that particular wagon and idiotically get started ranting over the ranting of some other idiot, I only end up in a self-traumatizing situation that my wife kindly points out to me.
Well, one of my favorites is Tom Hanks, whom I have to turn to when all seems overwhelming, terrifying, and on and on it seems to go these days!! Tom, a human being I greatly admire for his many fine qualities, reminds me that the worst thing I could possibly do during my time in this world, is to become cynical. That's a "DUH," if we really understand that cynicism makes what's bad, become worse. Thanks G. and hopefully you're mending with each day! 🤗
I first attended the Minnesota State F air at the age of 10- I took the street car there from south Minneapolis. I had saved $5. I then a found a five dollar bill on the ground. Had a great time and went home with $6. I have great memoriesa of those times.
So, then
Life is full of memories.
I think of them each day,
I take time to review them,
And then go on my way.
The memories are often special,
I like those that are the best,
I savory them and hold them,
And let go of all the rest.
Darel
"I worry about Minnesota"
Garrison, Thank you again for an uplifting message from someone my age, with an upper-MidWest origin--often in & thru Anoka.
I also worry about Minnesota, more especially about Minneapolis where I lived for six years during my education & grad school days (late 60's, early 70's). It was a very beautiful city, considered completely safe, highly educated with all the shopping & entertainment that the country's large metro areas bragged about.
It's hard to believe the news we now see of 'Mpls', and very sobering to see such a great community just crumble under social stresses--that virtually didn't exist in my time. Hopefully strong leadership will revive the city, as the great people who were once its core are still there--many or most of them.
Thank you for your continued cheerful essays...